Over 65 Crimes (3090_16)

Request

I am sending this request under the Freedom of Information Act to ask for the following information:

1. Please state the total number of reported crimes committed by individuals aged 65 and over, recorded by your force, in each of the following calendar years: a) 2012, b) 2013, c) 2014, d) 2015 and e) 2016 so far.

2. For each crime reported in the yearly totals above, please provide the following information in an excel spreadsheet:
a) Year of crime
b) Gender of offender
c) Age of offender (at time of crime)
d) Alleged offence

If you cannot provide the answer to question 2 within the cost limits of the Act, I would be grateful if you could answer question 1.

Response

Please find attached our response. Please note: some of the ages may be incorrect but are as recorded on our systems.

Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.